Stumped! 19 cams total, 12 Foscam, 11 ethernet Foscams fail repeatedly with No Signal

[jjf]

Hello - I am totally confused. I have been running BI for almost 2 years now with only the occasional No Signal issue. I am running 19 cams, which are a mix of USB and ip cams. Of those 19, 12 are Foscams. Of those 12, 11 are hardwired into my main router, and 1 is connected via WiFi to a long range repeater that is hardwired directly into my main router. Over the summer, out of the blue, I started getting the No Signal error on the 11 hardwired Foscams. it started off slow, but over time began happening repeatedly on a daily basis. It's weird, becasue this is the same setup i've been using for almost 2 years with no real issues.

ok, so when i get the No Signal error, it only happens to my 11 hardwired Foscams. All of the other cams, including the 1 WiFi Foscam, are all fine. And when I do get the No Signal error, it seems to come in clusters. Like this group of 3 cams goes out, then this group of 2, until all 11 are out. It seems to happen randomly. I have created static ip addresses within my router for all the 11 Foscams. I have set all 11 to manually be configured to ip's matching the router. I have tried many combinations. i have manually gone into the Command Prompt and tweaked the ip's there. nothing helps.

The only thing that rectifies the No Signal issue is unplugging and replugging the cams back in; all 11. Then the cams wil work fine for a little while before they all start failing again. they could go a few hours at most.

another weird thing is, when i configured my router to assign static ip's to all these cams, all worked fine for about a week or so, then, out of the blue one day, all 11 foscams failed at once, and now the random failures are back on a daily basis. why would all be fine for a week, the all of a sudden, not. ??? I am beyond frustrated and want to toss all my foscams and get D-Links. I have 2 of them right now on the same system, and they never go out. ever. but i don't particularly want to buy 11 new cams.

ok, so long story, but does anyone have any suggestions for me? and i mean, suggestions I haven't already tried and failed?? it almost seems like a timing issue. or, maybe foscam just sucks, plain and simple. but then i look at that one lone foscam, hooked up via wifi on a repeater. that cam is in the garage and about 30 feet away from the repeater, yet that one is my lone reliable foscam, while all the ethernet connected cams fail repeatedly on a daily basis. Confused!! HELP! PLEASE!

thanks

 

[fenderman]

Re: Stumped! 19 cams total, 12 Foscam, 11 ethernet Foscams fail repeatedly with No Si

Welcome to the forum. You are correct in that foscam does suck, however, dlink wont be any better. If and when you chose to replace your cameras look at hikvision or dahua. That said, foscams typically dont have connection related issues when they are hard wired. Are you able to access the cams directly via a web browser when blue iris is reporting no signal?

 

[Zxel]

Re: Stumped! 19 cams total, 12 Foscam, 11 ethernet Foscams fail repeatedly with No Si

1. How are you viewing the cameras? (Inside the application, video on the desktop, or web/mobile only)
2. When a camera goes out have you tried to right click on the video and select "restart camera"?
3. When a camera goes out can you still access it thru it's own built in web interface (direct to camera)?

If #2 works or #3 works it may be a BI issue (it is updated often, sometimes bugs creep in), so the leangth of time of running the same configuration is not the comfort you would normally assume. Idea here is to find out if it is a BI issue or a camera issue.

Since you use Blue Iris (good choice), you may be able to mitigate your problem by using the "Watchdog" tab on the cameras property page to restart the video without having to do it yourself manually (especially if #2 works).

This wont *fix* your issue, however, it may mitigate it for you.

 

[jjf]

Re: Stumped! 19 cams total, 12 Foscam, 11 ethernet Foscams fail repeatedly with No Si

thanks for the reply guys. no i am not able to connect or view the cams outside of BI, so apparently it's not their issue. the ip cam tool doesn't see the cams at all, so no other viewing method works and they are essentially dead when the issue happens. i have set the watchdog feature as suggested and we'll see if that does anything to help. sounds like it's my only hope. would be nice if these stupid things just worked. i'm wondering if 24 hr use for 2 years just is their lifespan. any other suggestions are appreciated. hopefully watchdog works.

 

[fenderman]

Re: Stumped! 19 cams total, 12 Foscam, 11 ethernet Foscams fail repeatedly with No Si

If you cannot access the cameras via browser then the watchdog probably wont work...
Do you have the latest firmware installed?
As much as I dislike foscam, i doubt they all went bad at the same time...

 

[Zxel]

Re: Stumped! 19 cams total, 12 Foscam, 11 ethernet Foscams fail repeatedly with No Si

If you cannot access the cameras via browser then the watchdog probably wont work...

fenderman is correct, the watchdog feature wont help if the camera itself does not respond.

You may want to test your POE switch, it may be a power issue within the switch, as fenderman said it is un-likely they all failed at the same time. The IP reset problem sounds like the cameras are resetting to defaults. If possible take one of the camera's and switch it to an alternate method of power (yes, I know this may not be an easy/possible thing for you to do).

You should be looking at things in common with all the failing cameras. If you can isolate one of the ones that are failing it would be a big troubleshooting help. I would guess that once isolated the camera will work fine...but this needs to be tested.

If you do plan on replacing the camera's you should look at the Dahua and Hikvision models, these are some of the best/cheapest camera's out right now that would fit your application (IMO).

 

[jjf]

Re: Stumped! 19 cams total, 12 Foscam, 11 ethernet Foscams fail repeatedly with No Si

yes, i have the latest firmware installed for all of them, but i'll check on that just to be sure. the cams are holding their settings and do not need to be reconfigured each time, just rebooted. i can try to power one POE just to see of that's any different. i have been trying to figure out patterns from one to the next but have not yet identified any. i'm wondering why that one lone foscam is s reliable when it's the one connected via long distance wifi, and all the wired ones keep failing. they are hard wired with ethernet, but powered via electrical adapter. i thought it was dhcp or upnp related but i don't see a connection or pattern there either. i have been working on this, on and off for a while and i am just kinda at wits end with it. totally lost. evey time i think i have it pegged, it comes back after a week or so. it really seems like some sort of timing issue that must be triggering this somehow. thanks for the alternate cam suggestions. i will look into that. i really don't want to blow more money on cams, but i'm just not sure what to do. i just tried setting up the watchdowg feature, and for some reason, just doing that knocked out every single ip cam, including non foscam. i was trying to have it detect no signal issues every 10 seconds, and reset then reboot after 2 and 3 outages respectively. apparently, that was a bit much. so i rolled everything back and now am just asking watchdog to reset the cams after 6 hrs of continuous use. maybe that will camouflage the problem and make it tolerable. thanks again for trying to assist. fingers crossed

 

[fenderman]

Re: Stumped! 19 cams total, 12 Foscam, 11 ethernet Foscams fail repeatedly with No Si

I doubt any of you cams are POE capable (unless you use passive poe, which is the same as using a power adapter as far as the camera is concerned.. dont waste time or money on that)...when the cams go out, try running an ip scanner to see of any of the cams show up at other ip's or as active...

 

[jjf]

Re: Stumped! 19 cams total, 12 Foscam, 11 ethernet Foscams fail repeatedly with No Si

ok, will do. and thanks for your time

 

[Zxel]

Re: Stumped! 19 cams total, 12 Foscam, 11 ethernet Foscams fail repeatedly with No Si

i'm wondering why that one lone foscam is s reliable when it's the one connected via long distance wifi, and all the wired ones keep failing. they are hard wired with ethernet, but powered via electrical adapter.

I would say the wifi one is working because it is isolated from the wired ones (this is why isolating a failing camera is a good test). It may be the switch/router you have the camera wired to is the problem, or perhaps you have a building power issue (like a failing ground), although this is not likely.

The key here is it is most likely to be a common component between all the wired cameras, I would bet if you isolated one it would work fine. You could also try swaping the *working* wifi camera with one of the wired ones (this would be about the same as isolating one), if this is an easier thing to do.

The LAST thing I would do is go run out and buy new cameras, unless you believe ALL the wired cameras failed at the same time (because the problem will still be there).

It would be helpful to see if the cameras indeed go completely *dead* untill rebooted, or if they have just switched to a different IP (fenderman's idea is a good one). This brings up another issue - set the IPs of the camera's to fixed - DO NOT use DHCP (even when set to reserve an address) for your cameras, there are several reasons for this, one of which is your router (the dhcp server) could be the issue. There are many other reasons not to use DHCP for cameras (and yes I like DHCP), it could be as simple as your lease time is too short.

Don't give up, when you find the problem it will probably be something very simple - it always seems to be that way. :blink:

 

[jjf]

Re: Stumped! 19 cams total, 12 Foscam, 11 ethernet Foscams fail repeatedly with No Si

thanks for all the suggestions. at least it's new perspective and something to go on. yup, it'll probably be something silly and stupid. i may try isolating some cams. funky electrical just might be a possibility. this place is older so, there's all sorts of issues. does anyone know how to permanently get the ir's to stay off? every time the cams reboot, they come back on. i have a ptz event trigger to look back to the off command, and the setting in the camera's right click menu shows it's off, yet somehow, something is overriding it. sometimes these cams are a real pain